Breanne Johnson is an artist and self-taught new designer living and working in Detroit, Michigan. She holds Bachelor of Art degrees in Visual Art and Political Science from the University of Chicago. Born in California, Breanne shares citizenship with the United States and the island country Curaçao. Her design work focuses on phenomenological home items and furniture that examine our relationship to the social and physical spaces we inhabit. She enjoys thinking about the home, broadly, as an ever-changing and malleable space. As both an artist and designer, Breanne identifies strongly as a creative problem solver and grapples with a diverse range of problems through a diverse range of media. She has exhibited work at Forum Gallery, Goldner Walsh Garden and Home, Logan Center Exhibitions, Detroit Is The New Black, and in the 2021 Cranbrook Chair Show. Breanne recently participated in a Chop Wood Carry Water residency in northern Illinois. Currently an MFA candidate in the 3D Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Breanne is slated for graduation in 2023.

The Swivel Table is a rotating dining table that questions the ways that we relate to one another and share space around a table, considering the table as a kind of ritual stage. A single unit, this table connects people physically and metaphorically. It is a table made of steel, birch plywood, and lazy Susan hardware, for which the program of the table has been reimagined to suggest new methods of use, arrangement, and gathering.

The entire top of this table spins, while the benches and bench trays are in a fixed position. Because there is no personal “real estate” atop the table, users are allotted portions of their bench segment to store and gather personal items, which are then activated above the domain of the tabletop, handheld. Lastly, an ambiguous, curved topographical feature disrupts the table surface, eliminating the possibility of symmetry, and creating instead a platform for arranging tableware in new and creative ways. The table asks participants to share, trust, listen and respond. It demands a certain bodily awareness and makes gestures to encourage collaboration, togetherness, and shared use.

My studio is in my home in Detroit and at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where I am a student. My process combines thought-out design with creative problem-solving techniques, allowing me to work openly and intuitively, within the parameters that I set for myself.